Nintendo's Scott Moffitt believes the response is proof that Wii U pricing is in a good spot

Wii U has only a few more days before launch in the US, and if you didn't pre-order, it could be tough to buy one, as sales have been brisk. Nintendo of America's Scott Moffitt, executive vice president of sales and marketing, told GamesIndustry International that the $349 Deluxe Set version in particular has been a very hot item.

Despite some concerns over hardware pricing possibly being too high, Moffitt asserted that consumer demand is what matters, and consumers have been telling Nintendo that the price is indeed right.

"All I can say is that the response has been phenomenal and we're getting, especially in the higher priced deluxe set, that one's selling out incredibly quickly. That seems to indicate that the pricing's in a good spot and the proof is in the consumer response," Moffitt remarked in an interview to be published in full tomorrow.

While shortages were a huge problem for the original Wii's launch, Moffitt is expecting Nintendo to do a much better job on replenishment this time around. That doesn't mean it'll necessarily be easy for walk-ins at Walmart or Best Buy to just pick one up any day of the week without a pre-order.

"Certainly we've seen brisk pre-sales and that the phone calls have been coming into our headquarters for quite a while now asking for more and so we do expect high demand. But I can tell you this - on opening week we will have more systems on hand for the Wii U than we did for the launch of Wii. And, second, our replenishments will be more frequent this holiday time than during the Wii launch," Moffitt noted.

"But, having said all that, it's impossible to exactly predict demand, and so I can't say that we won't have some shortages out there and that people won't have to be a little patient with the replenishment truckload and shipments and boatloads to arrive."

Stay tuned for the full interview with Moffitt in which we discuss launch window planning, tablets, Nintendo's financials and more.

@ Jim, no, it has nothing to do with that. We're able to highlight bits as news this way that some people (in our wider audience) wouldn't see, because we do have a broad audience besides just you guys registered as commenters.

Whatever new device the main platform holders come up with, even chocolate fireguards, they will sell a few million on or immediately after day one. Just to the early adopters and fanboys. Look at the Vita for proof off this.
The problem comes when trying to reach mass market consumers who have a different set of priorities. See Maslow for reference.

I would remind GI about the Vita. That sold very well on day one. Pretty much to people like me who actually need to get these damned wastes of space. Luckily I don't do Nintendo games so I don't have to buy this piece of "interesting plastic" (feel free to substitute the phrase in quotes for anything you like that comes from the back end of a large, overfed bull).

Im not so sure IMO, people have learnt from the Wii shortage and many just want a quick "buck", Im sure the system is popular amoungst non scalpers but I just think ebay is going to be awash with them shortly at a much higher price.

I may pick one up but I think I will give the initial release a miss just to see how it all plays out.

For the naysayers: I don't think anybody ever assumed Nintendo would struggle at launch. They sold 3.6 million over-priced, under-featured, poorly advertised 3DS systems with the worst launch line up of any Nintendo platform. And they managed that in March!! Avoiding hardware failures or massive shortages, the Wii U's launch will be plain sailing for Nintendo. We all know, Nintendo know, third parties know, hell, even analysts should know at this point, that Nintendo's real battle with Wii U are the months and years to come. Getting it to market is one small step, everything after that needs to be the giant leap.

I agree with all comments on this: this is a non-story, everybody knew as soon as Nintendo announced (and before) the real manufacture quantity before end March of 5.5 million that there would be out of stock stories abound. A bit cheeky to suggest that all these early adopters with massive wallets wouldn't have bought if the price had been higher; it would sell out at $400+. Please, no such stories for the next gen Xbox and PS please.

@Bruce Then whats the 3DS proof of as it sells 10s of thousands a week if not 100s of thousands? Ah Bruce do you ever add anything remotly credible to conversations on this sight other then the fact you think anything but phone and tablet gaming is dead? Seriously you really need to come up with some new material cause most people n this sight will play a console long before they waste money on a tablet to play games at home.

3DS sold over 400,000 units last week. Up over 100,000 units from the same week last year.

And then we have Gamestop saying they have a 500,000 unit allotment for launch and all are already taken by pre-order. Plus a further 1.2 million in software pre-orders. That's just the US and just 1 retailer. If those figures extrapolate across the full breadth of the global market, the Wii U will have the largest console launch in history by a very large margin.